Oration From the Latin, "plead, speak, pray". A speech delivered in a formal and dignified manner.

. An oration is an oral discourse on a worthy and dignifiedtheme, adapted to the average hearer, and whose aim is to influence the will of that hearer." (Clark Mills Brink, The Making of an Oration. 1913) "It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome." (Plutarch) "In classical antiquity, the oration was the very center of rhetorical theory and practice, though among the three types of speech--deliberative, judiciary, and epideictic--the last was to become the most important in the later centuries of antiquity. During the Middle Ages, the secular public speech and the political and social institutions supporting it disappeared more or less completely." (Paul Oskar Kristeller, "Rhetoric in Medieval and Renaissance Culture," in Renaissance Eloquence, ed. by James J. Murphy. Univ. of California Press, 1983) "[The schoolboy] shall have redd unto him the bookes of Cicero Ad Heremium, where in the schoolemaister shall teach the schollers to frame and make an oration according to the precepts of Rhetorick." (Tudor plan for study found in the statutes of the cathedral school at Durham, 1593, cited by Arthur F. Kinney in Humanist Poetics: Thought, Rhetoric, and Fiction in Sixteenth-Century England. Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1986)

Etymology

It is recorded in English since c. 1374, meaning "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from AngloFrench oratour, Old French orateur (14th century), Latin orator ("speaker"), from orare("speak before a court or assembly; plead"), derived from a Proto-Indo-European base *or- ("to pronounce a ritual formula"). The modern meaning of the word, "public speaker", is attested from c. 1430. HIstory In ancient Rome, the art of speaking in public (Ars Oratoria) was a professional competence especially cultivated by politicians and lawyers. As the Greeks were still seen as the masters in this field, as in philosophy and most sciences, the leading Roman families often either sent their sons to study these things under a famous master in Greece (as was the case with the youngJulius Caesar), or engaged a Greek teacher (under pay or as a slave).[citation needed] In the young revolutionary French republic, Orateur (French for "orator", but compare the Anglo-Saxon parliamentary speaker) was the formal title for the delegated members of the Tribunatto the Corps lgislatif, to motivate their ruling on a presented bill.

In the 19th century, orators and lecturers, such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Col. Robert G. Ingersoll were major providers of popular entertainment. The term pulpit orator denotes Christian authors, often clergymen, renowned for their ability to write and/or deliver (from the pulpit in church, hence the word) rhetorically skilled religioussermons. In some universities, the title 'Orator' is given to the official whose task it is to give speeches on ceremonial occasions, such as the presentation of honorary degrees.

The Parts of an Oration in Classical Rhetoric "The Introduction is the beginning of the discourse, and by it the hearer's mind is prepared for attention. The Narration or Statement of Facts sets forth the events that have occurred or might have occurred. By means of the Division we make clear what matters are agreed upon and what are contested, and announce what points we intend to take up. Proof is the presentation of our arguments, together with their corroboration. Refutation is the destruction of our adversaries' arguments. The Conclusion is the end of the discourse, formed in accordance with the principles of the Art."

"If you read or listen to (for example) political speeches, you will find that many of them follow this order. This is because the form of the classical oration is suited primarily toargument--to the kind of writing in which the writer makes a case for or against something and refutes opposing arguments." (David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, Writing Analytically, 5th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, 2009) "[Throughout the Renaissance,] the oration remained fixed as the supreme form ofdiscourse, just as it had been for the Romans. In the opinion of Walter Ong, the oration 'tyrannized over ideas of what expression as such--literary or other--was.' . . . "It is no exaggeration to say that the rules of the classical oration were applied to every kind of discourse." (Don Paul Abbott, "Rhetoric and Writing in the Renaissance." A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America, 2nd ed., ed. by James Jerome Murphy. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001)